About "Let's Fix the Sex Talk"

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        The book is called “Where Did I Come From?,” copyright 1973. The two main characters are a short, plump husband and wife who look to be about sixty years old. Readers meet them together naked in a bathtub, all body parts exposed. The book’s mission: “the facts of life without any nonsense.” 

This book was how my mother gave me “the sex talk” when I was about ten years old. Now more than forty years later, that book sits on the shelf in my office with a tattered cover and yellowed pages. It is a daily reminder that we have to do better with our kids. 

When it comes to talking with their kids about sex, today’s parents face two significant challenges. First, they are being asked to do something that wasn’t done for them. If their parents did make an attempt, like my mom, it was probably not a very helpful attempt. Second, the cultural threats of sexual pressure and misinformation are far greater than they were a generation ago. Add to these the common experience of regret over past experiences or hurt from sexual harm, and many parents struggle to have the clarity and confidence needed to effectively take on these topics with their children. 

“Let’s Fix the Sex Talk” has a vision to empower parents to be the primary sex educators of their children in a biblical context of identity and sexuality. I want to help parents parent their children well, starting at the earliest ages and continuing on up through adolescence and into adulthood. They say a family that prays together stays together. I say, a family that talks about sex together stays together! If you can talk about sex, you can talk about anything, and doing so will draw your family closer to one another. Family connectedness, as the research calls it, is one of the most protective factors you can provide your children, not just when it comes to sexual risk but also risks of alcohol, drugs, and violence. 

I feel strongly that parents are most important in helping children flourish physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. It’s our God-given job to both protect them from the many dangers crouching at their young lives and prepare them to live confidently into God’s good plans for them. It’s about the No’s, but even more about the Yes’s.  It’s about reflecting on our past learning and experiences, connecting with them emotionally and relationally, and then directing them towards their created identity as an image bearer of God and their sexuality to be understood and lived out in accordance with His “good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

I speak out of my personal experience as a wife and a mother of four young adult children as well as from my professional experience in health and sex education that began just before we married now over 30 years ago. I hold a degree in Community Health Education and a Master of Public Health in Health Promotion, and have spent most of my ministry years in prevention education upholding God’s beautiful design for identity and sexuality. 

It is my privilege now to help parents of growing children and adolescents navigate these challenging topics in these challenging times. I’d like to encourage you by saying, “You can do this!” but I’d also like to implore you by saying, “You must do this!” There is too much on the line for us to stay silent or to defer to the school or to the Church. We can lean into the Bible and live out our calling with God’s help, and our children will be blessed. So let’s huddle up around our kids as a family connected and committed to living counter-culturally and honoring God. Yes, let’s fix the sex talk!